


Surviving the Cold

by Flamegirl22



Series: Marvel Bingo 2019 [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Don't Post To Another Site, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Marvel Bingo, Still trying to figure out tags, marvelbingo2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 07:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20689484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flamegirl22/pseuds/Flamegirl22
Summary: Tony and Bucky are stranded in a snow storm after their plane crashes.This is for my Huddling for Warmth square in Marvel Bingo 2019.





	Surviving the Cold

Surviving the Cold 

The wind was howling outside the mouth of the cave. Tony shivered and Bucky pulled him closer. Tony was settled in his lap, face tucked into the juncture between Bucky’s neck and shoulder. The plane they were on had gone down and Bucky was the only reason Tony had survived. Pepper had convinced Tony to not take the armor, but Steve had insisted Bucky go with him if he wasn’t taking it. Steve, Natasha and Clint were on a mission otherwise Steve would have gone with him. Bucky and Sam had just finished their own mission 24 hours before. They had come home, debriefed, ate and then Bucky had slept for almost 15 hours straight, but when he woke up, he was ready to go with Tony. They had been careful to keep Bucky’s identity a secret, so he had decided to keep his facemask. They had worried how the public would react to it but overall there wasn’t much reaction either way. Since he was an unknow, Tony simply passed him off as security. 

Tony hadn’t been happy that Steve insisted that he take him, but he was now. Both pilots were dead, there was nothing they could do for them. They had crashed in a mountain range in north central Colorado coming back to the East Coast and there hadn’t been enough wreckage left to stay in. So, they had set out walking. They walked most of the day, but as it got closer to evening, it had started to snow. Bucky insisted they find shelter and Tony had agreed. Bucky would probably survive days in the subfreezing temperatures, but Tony would not. Tony had balked when they came across the cave, but Bucky told him he didn’t have a choice. He wouldn’t survive the night in the elements. They both knew that his shaking then had very little to do with the cold, but it went unacknowledged.  
“How are you doing Shellhead?” Bucky asked, warm breath ghosting over Tony’s cheek.  
Tony shivered at the different sensation. His body shuddered and Bucky rubbed his flesh hand up and down his arm, trying to warm him up.  
“I’m okay, Tasty Freeze,” Tony said, voice muffled in Bucky’s neck.  
“No you’re not. We are lucky you are still shivering. I run hotter than most humans but we’re both still wet, our clothes are wet and we couldn’t get a fire going. You know as well as I how bad a situation this is. I’ll survive the night. It’s you I’m worried about.”  
Tony snaked his arm around Bucky’s waist, scraping it a bit on the stone behind Bucky’s back and squeezed as much as he could. His other hand found Bucky’s flesh wrist and his thumb rubbed against the pulse there. “I’m going to be okay.”  
“What are you doing? Get your arms back where they were. You need to keep your arms as close to your core as you can. You know that.” Bucky snapped as he tried to get Tony’s arm out from behind him without letting go of the genius. Tony decided to cooperate and let his arm be placed back against his chest. They both saw the bloody gashes at the same time.  
“Oh hell, I’m sorry Tony,” Bucky said, eyebrows pulled low over gray eyes.  
Tony tried to smile at him. “It’s not your fault Winter Wonder. I did that when I stuck my arm back there.”

Bucky wrapped his metal arm around Tony’s shins and gently pushed his legs closer to his chest, using his thigh to support Tony’s legs.  
“You know they are looking for us. The pilots got out the distress call, we heard it. The team will find us. We only got about five miles from the crash. The snow was too deep to get very far. The team will know that. They will start at the crash site and they will work their way out. Clint will have a plane up as soon as this storm is clear. You are going to be fine Tony.” Bucky said, rocking a tiny bit.  
Tony smiled into the collarbone his cheek was resting against. “I know I will. I’m not worried. We are both going to be ok. I’ve been cold before and survived. The cave is small enough, I wouldn’t even call this a cave, that our body heat will keep it warm enough that we shouldn’t freeze to death.”

Bucky turned his head so his stubbled cheek was leaning on wild, dark hair. It was softer than he was expecting. Tony chuckled and closed his eyes.  
“Hey!” Bucky said urgently. “You gotta keep talkin’ to me, okay? You cannot sleep. I know you’re tired, but you gotta stay awake.”  
“How did you know I closed my eyes. You can’t see my face.” Tony pulled back to look at him.  
Bucky used his metal hand to gently force Tony’s head back down on his shoulder and Tony went without a struggle. He put his cheek back against the top of his head again. “I felt your eyelashes against my shoulder. Don’t you dare go to sleep, you hear me?”  
“I’m not going to sleep. Just, I know I said it’s not a cave, but it’s cave-like and that’s enough for my mind to be giving me hell. I just-I don’t want to- it’s fine. I won’t close my eyes again.” Tony whispered.  
Bucky tightened his arms around the smaller man, offering the only comfort he could. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll see. You are here with me and I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. I know you are perfectly capable of defending yourself, but you don’t have the suit and, well, super soldier. So I win.”  
Tony laughed weakly before coughing into his arm. Both men ignored the wet element to the sound. They fell into silence, both lost in their own thoughts. They hadn’t been friends long enough to have a lot of things to talk about and there was no way they were going to talk about the elephant in their friendship.

“You know Stevie didn’t want to send me with you. He wanted to come himself, but I couldn’t take his place in his mission,” Bucky murmured after a long stretch of silence.  
“You know that wasn’t because he doesn’t trust you, right?” Tony pulled back to look at him.  
Again, Bucky pushed his head back down, but his time Tony resisted.  
“Stop that!” Bucky frowned at Tony.  
“You know that, right?” Tony said again, ignoring everything else.  
“Yes, Tony, I know that! Now get your face back here! You don’t need frostbite on your nose.”  
Tony allowed Bucky to draw him back down. “Yeah. That would suck.”

It was silent in the cave again for a while. The wind and snow slowly died down. There was a stillness in the air that Tony broke when he spoke. “You know I don’t blame you for what happened, right?”  
“I’m practically naked, you are, and you’re in my lap, and you think this is the right time to talk about this?” Bucky asked, pulling slightly back to look down at Tony.  
Tony shrugged. “Not like either of us can walk out, now can we.”  
Bucky reached up with his metal hand and rubbed his eyes. “Does it matter that I don’t really want to talk about this?”  
“I’m not happy at how resigned you sound. Look, I know I can be abrasive and rude and inconsiderate but I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want to. I think you’ve had enough of that in your lifetime. You tell me to leave it alone, and I will. But we do need to talk about this, if for no other reason than Steve. We both love the guy.”  
They fell back into an uncomfortable silence. The air between them was now fraught with tension. Tony started shifting around anxiously. Where before he was still, now he couldn’t seem to settle. Bucky sighed and pulled him tighter against his chest.  
“Settle,” he murmured into the dark hair. “Tony, settle. It’s fine. I know you can be antsy but this is ridiculous. Calm down.”  
Tony went still at the rebuke.  
“I’m sorry.”

The silence stretched between them again until Bucky let out a sharp, aggravated breath. “I know you don’t blame me. I blame me. I blame me and Hydra. I know blaming myself isn’t rational. People can say whatever they want about withstanding torture, but the reality is, eventually, everyone breaks. They just have to find what you respond to. It took far longer for me to break than I thought it would. I can only guess that that is part of the super soldier serum I got. And even though it’s not rational, I blame myself for breaking. I blame myself for what they made me do. I might not have had the autonomy to make my own decisions, but it was still my hands that did it.”  
“I’m not really sure what to say. I can’t, I won’t tell you how to feel. All I can say, as the son of two people Hydra used you to kill, I don’t blame you. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t angry when I first found out. That anger was directed at you for all of two minutes, then I processed and turned that anger on the people who deserve it. And that isn’t you.” Tony whispered.  
The silence between them was more natural now. They both knew there were still issues to work out, but the tension was gone. Tony’s whole body shook with his next round of coughing. It was deep and wet sounding and it left Tony panting for breath.  
“Why is that advancing so fast? Usually it takes longer a night for a cough to get this bad, unless you went out there sick?” Bucky’s voice was slightly muffled as he rubbed his hand over his mouth.  
Tony just shook his head, still struggling to breath normally.  
“Okay, just calm down. You can breathe.”  
Tony waved his hand weakly, trying to reassure Bucky. His voice was raspy when he spoke. “I’m fine. The reactor… I lost lung capacity. It doesn’t take much for my breathing to become compromised anymore. It’s not usually an issue. I eat pretty healthy, take vitamins, do what I need to to keep my lungs strong. But when I do get sick, it goes straight to my chest. Pneumonia, while not usually deadly anymore, can kill me. I got walking pneumonia, which isn’t usually bad, just about did me in. I ended up in the ICU on a vent. Rhodey and Pepper didn’t think I was going to make it.” Tony opened his brow eyes to look up at Bucky and in a soft voice confessed, “I don’t want to do that again.”  
Bucky rubbed his hand up and down Tony’s arm as he said “You are going to be fine. We are going to get out of here in a few hours and we will get you medical treatment and you’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

The next several hours passed with Tony falling in and out of sleep and Bucky doing his best to keep him awake. The former assassin noticed Tony getting warmer as the night progressed. By the time dawn broke Tony’s face was white with the exception of patches of pink high on his cheeks. He was just about to start thinking about going on to see if he could leave a marker or something for the team to find them when a figure appeared at the mouth of the cave. Bucky felt every muscle tighten, ready to fight to defend Tony.  
“Buck, it’ me,” Steve’s voice rang out. “Are you and Tony alright?”  
Bucky couldn’t help the sigh that escaped. He looked down at Tony, the other man clearly sick, then answered his friend, who had come closer. “I’m fine. Tony needs a doctor. Tell me you brought blankets. His clothes are frozen.”  
Steve just pulled out a blanket from his pack and together the two men wrapped the third in it. They tried to rouse Tony but all he did was mumble.  
“Get dressed,” Steve instructed, handing Bucky clothes before taking Tony.  
Bucky pulled on the winter gear. “You got something to dress Tony in?”  
“No, we got a sled with heating packs and more blankets outside. We were going to put both of you in it if we had to.”  
“One night in the cold won’t hurt me,” Bucky said as he reached for the brunette in Steve’s arms.  
“I got him,” Steve said, moving back toward the mouth of the cave. “C’mon. We got to get you both out of the cold. Tony feels hot.”  
“He’s sick. He needs a doctor as soon as we can.” Bucky said, following the blonde.  
The two soldiers buckled Tony in for the short trip to where the rest of the team was waiting with the jet to take them home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
